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The horrors of Pompeii

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Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#11

Post by WalterBright »

bruce511 wrote: post #9
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without economics we'd all starve to death. Edit: I submit "Alone", the TV show where survival experts are dumped out in the wilderness one by one, where they all starve and eventually get pulled out for losing dangerous amounts of weight. And this is despite bringing along survival gear made by an advanced economy.

Not sure why the down-votes, but I will point out they start in late fall, in areas uncolonised by people in 2000 years- which might infer some hint as to the desirability of said location.

They were also severely restricted in what technology they could bring. But they still had fish hooks, survival clothing, advanced bow and arrows, an advanced saw or hatchet, fish line, and fire starter.

Only one was able to make fire without a fire starter. After watching Alone, I bought myself a fire starter, to carry when hiking.

I remember one father/son team. The son had some sort of fisheries degree, and considered himself a fishing expert. Father and son would fish, the father caught fish regularly, the son couldn't catch one. A lot of the fishing experts turned out to be not so good at fishing, the same for the hunting experts.

What's kinda sad is how bad most were at building shelters. They'd spend all their calories building a magnificent log cabin, and then were too weak to continue. Season after season they'd do this. Or they'd spend time carving toys. Or they'd burn down their shelter with a bad fireplace or poison themselves with the smoke.

The point is, humans have evolved to need an economy for mutual survival. Can't realistically do it alone, from scratch.

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#12

Post by mc32 »

withinboredom wrote: post #10
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without economics we'd all starve to death. Edit: I submit "Alone", the TV show where survival experts are dumped out in the wilderness one by one, where they all starve and eventually get pulled out for losing dangerous amounts of weight. And this is despite bringing along survival gear made by an advanced economy.

A lot of people would, yes. Our economics has allowed people who would otherwise die, to live. Medicine, food distribution, research, construction, etc. A large portion would be fine. Maybe unhappy, maybe not, but they'd survive. Most people are completely clueless about how little "Mother" nature gives a shit. The outdoors will kill you very quickly, especially if you're alone. If you have even just a small group of…

Not to mention, "simple" things like vision (aids), hearing (aids) and ability to read and write.

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#13

Post by WalterBright »

withinboredom wrote: post #10
WalterBright wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Without economics we'd all starve to death. Edit: I submit "Alone", the TV show where survival experts are dumped out in the wilderness one by one, where they all starve and eventually get pulled out for losing dangerous amounts of weight. And this is despite bringing along survival gear made by an advanced economy.

A lot of people would, yes. Our economics has allowed people who would otherwise die, to live. Medicine, food distribution, research, construction, etc. A large portion would be fine. Maybe unhappy, maybe not, but they'd survive. Most people are completely clueless about how little "Mother" nature gives a shit. The outdoors will kill you very quickly, especially if you're alone. If you have even just a small group of…

> If you have even just a small group of people, the odds change drastically.

Yup. Bob is good at making gill nets, Ted is good at gathering berries. Fred is good at making a cabin. Sam is good at bow hunting. They trade their surpluses. A small economy. None have the skills needed to go it alone.

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#14

Post by [deleted] »

WalterBright wrote: post #7
srcthr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course as is typical of late stage western cultural elitism there are 4000 words on sex and two for the mines. You'd think the place where slave lifespan was measured in years rather than decades would make for a more interesting story. A man drowning in the dark, trapped by a rock fall, seeing the crushed head of his foreman on the left and his best friend running on the right. But that would mean forcing rea…

Without economics we'd all starve to death. Edit: I submit "Alone", the TV show where survival experts are dumped out in the wilderness one by one, where they all starve and eventually get pulled out for losing dangerous amounts of weight. And this is despite bringing along survival gear made by an advanced economy.

[deleted]

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#15

Post by srcthr »

WalterBright wrote: post #7
srcthr wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And of course as is typical of late stage western cultural elitism there are 4000 words on sex and two for the mines. You'd think the place where slave lifespan was measured in years rather than decades would make for a more interesting story. A man drowning in the dark, trapped by a rock fall, seeing the crushed head of his foreman on the left and his best friend running on the right. But that would mean forcing rea…

Without economics we'd all starve to death. Edit: I submit "Alone", the TV show where survival experts are dumped out in the wilderness one by one, where they all starve and eventually get pulled out for losing dangerous amounts of weight. And this is despite bringing along survival gear made by an advanced economy.

[flagged]

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#16

Post by autoexec »

Tronno wrote: post #3

In case it wasn't immediately clear (it wasn't to me) "2 asses" refers to the as/assarius, a coin. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/As_(Roman_coin)

Thank you! I really couldn't imagine two donkeys being the price, but even that was easier than trying to workout what the biological explanation would have been.

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#17

Post by autoexec »

WalterBright wrote: post #13
withinboredom wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of people would, yes. Our economics has allowed people who would otherwise die, to live. Medicine, food distribution, research, construction, etc. A large portion would be fine. Maybe unhappy, maybe not, but they'd survive. Most people are completely clueless about how little "Mother" nature gives a shit. The outdoors will kill you very quickly, especially if you're alone. If you have even just a small group of…

> If you have even just a small group of people, the odds change drastically. Yup. Bob is good at making gill nets, Ted is good at gathering berries. Fred is good at making a cabin. Sam is good at bow hunting. They trade their surpluses. A small economy. None have the skills needed to go it alone.

> None have the skills needed to go it alone.

Yet the idea of a "self-made millionaire" is pervasive and people were pretty quick to hate on the "You didn't build that" observation.

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#18

Post by autoexec »

WalterBright wrote: post #11
bruce511 wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not sure why the down-votes, but I will point out they start in late fall, in areas uncolonised by people in 2000 years- which might infer some hint as to the desirability of said location.

They were also severely restricted in what technology they could bring. But they still had fish hooks, survival clothing, advanced bow and arrows, an advanced saw or hatchet, fish line, and fire starter. Only one was able to make fire without a fire starter. After watching Alone, I bought myself a fire starter, to carry when hiking. I remember one father/son team. The son had some sort of fisheries degree, and consid…

> What's kinda sad is how bad most were at building shelters.

Seems expected when you consider that most people have never built a shelter, and those that have aren't often doing it on a regular basis using whatever happens to be lying around. Same for fishers and hunters who are highly skilled in the environments they regularly work in. You can only expect them to struggle when placed in new environments with new added restrictions. You'd just hope they'd struggle a bit less than an novice would in that situation.

Re: The horrors of Pompeii

#19

Post by c_crank »

GolfPopper wrote: post #6
cafard wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Late stage" or "late capitalism" always suggests to me that the user has inside information on the sell-by date. I don't disagree about the proportion of attention.

I suspect it's a combination of looking around and going "this can't possibly be stable" combined with a degree of wish-fulfillment.

Is "this" capitalism?
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